The Trump Presidency Timeline

Max Blumenthal flew back from covering Ali Khamenei’s funeral in Iran and landed at Dulles, where US Customs and Border Protection rolled out the red carpet for journalists the Trump administration doesn’t like: a "secondary inspection," interrogation about who funded his trip, and the casual seizure of his two phones after he refused to cough up his passwords. His laptop and cameras? Untouched. Because why bother with actual reporting materials when you can go straight for contacts, sources, and private communications like a government that’s definitely not hostile to the First Amendment.

The phones were magically returned less than 24 hours after the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee filed an emergency court motion, with the government claiming, pinky swear, they couldn’t get into them so everything’s fine. Judge Leonie Brinkema was unconvinced by the "trust us, we’re the people secretly copying your devices" routine, and ordered the government to explain exactly who had the phones, when, and what they tried to do with them. That pesky Fourth Circuit ruling saying you need a warrant for an "advanced" search of a phone? Turns out it still exists, even if Trump-world treats the Constitution like an optional app.

All this followed public calls from Trump ally Laura Loomer for Blumenthal to be taken off his plane and detained, which really helps drive home that this wasn’t a random security check so much as a fan-service stunt for the administration’s anti-press base. Meanwhile, the same government that recently tried and failed to subpoena New York Times reporters is now insisting that whatever they did to Blumenthal’s phones might be "law enforcement privileged" and therefore too sensitive to disclose. When the White House is picking out journalists for special border harassment based on their politics and identities – in this case, a "Jewish anti-Zionist" reporter – you’re not running a democracy, you’re running a petty surveillance state with worse UX.

Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump is once again doing his favorite impression: a wrecking ball in a commander-in-chief costume. He’s musing about ditching NATO, threatening to seize Greenland from Denmark like it’s a foreclosed golf course, and offering Ukraine all the reliability of his marriages. The lesson for Britain’s new PM Andy Burnham is helpfully simple: the US under Trump is not a security guarantor, it’s a rolling security hazard with its finger on both the nuclear button and the tariffs panel.

European states, having noticed that the guy who can’t read a briefing memo now controls the alliance, are quietly building their own grown-up table. The EU is turning itself into a “security community,” pooling hundreds of billions for joint defence procurement, arming Ukraine, coordinating on energy, cyber, vaccines, climate and migration – basically all the stuff Washington used to pretend to care about before it got distracted by its latest culture war. Meanwhile, post-Brexit Britain is standing outside the club, insisting it’s very sovereign while watching all the industrial and strategic benefits flow to EU members instead.

Trump’s tariffs and economic tantrums are the other fun subplot: he’s weaponising globalisation from the US end while China tightens its grip on rare earths, and the UK discovers that being a mid‑sized economy alone in a knife fight between giants is less “Global Britain” and more “discount client state”. The op-ed’s big reveal is that the only way for Britain to reduce its exposure to Trump’s whims is to do the one thing its Brexit arsonists swore was unnecessary: rebuild deep political, economic and security integration with Europe, so one unstable US president can’t tank its economy or its security every time he gets bored.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has apparently discovered a new superpower: divining the citizenship status of hundreds of thousands of voters using data he won’t show anyone, from sources he won’t identify, via methods he won’t explain. Ahead of Trump’s latest primetime “the elections are rigged, trust me bro” speech, Mullin told four states — Nevada, Pennsylvania, California, and New Jersey — that they were harboring over 250,000 noncitizens on their voter rolls, then publicly threatened officials with prison time if they didn’t “secure their elections.” Because nothing says “confident in our evidence” like menacing state officials on TV while refusing to show your work.

State election chiefs, including Republicans, are now politely asking the obvious question: what the hell are you talking about? Nevada’s Cisco Aguilar and Pennsylvania’s Al Schmidt both pointed out that DHS doesn’t even have the unredacted voter rolls the Justice Department is currently suing to obtain, yet somehow it’s matching Social Security numbers and declaring people noncitizens. California’s Shirley Weber went a step further and asked Mullin to cough up the names of anyone who illegally handed over Californians’ private voter data, since that’s a crime under state law. She also asked whether DHS used artificial intelligence, which is a nice way of saying, “Did you let ChatGPT disenfranchise my voters?”

The one actual error found — in New Jersey — involved a Motor Vehicle Commission software screwup that registered about 6,600 self-identified noncitizens and resulted in roughly 400 votes over two years, a very real problem that still comes in at about one-seventh of the 35,000 Mullin claimed for the state. New Jersey’s governor Mikie Sherrill told the feds they’re not getting detailed voter info, prompting Assistant AG Harmeet Dhillon to jump on X and vow that DOJ will pry it loose “through all legal means!” The Trump administration is once again screaming about “election integrity” while using secret lists, dodgy data, and federal muscle to intimidate states and challenge the eligibility of actual citizens. It’s less about finding noncitizen voters and more about building a pretext to purge the rolls — and, if needed, the election results.

Shocking news from the country currently on fire: three-quarters of Americans have noticed that Donald Trump is far more focused on turning Washington DC into a taxpayer-funded Trump-branded theme park than on the actual problems wrecking their lives. Only 34% approve of his performance, tying his post–January 6 insurrection low, which is quite an achievement considering you really have to work to be as unpopular as trying to overthrow an election while you’re also busy starting an unpopular war.

The Iran adventure is going about as well as every other Trump project that doesn’t involve gold leaf and unpaid contractors. Just 28% approve of his handling of the war, a mere 25% think it’s been worth the cost in money and American lives, and 74% say soaring gas prices are causing hardship. So yes, the president who promised cheaper everything has delivered body bags, $6 gas, and a Pentagon scrambling to explain away a casualty cover-up. Mission accomplished.

Even his signature cruelty brand is losing market share. Only 39% approve of his hardline immigration policies, and a majority say he’s gone too far with mass deportations. Turns out that ripping families apart and turning communities into ICE scavenger hunts doesn’t play so well once people see it up close. Meanwhile, just 17% feel good about his latest shrine-to-self projects: a taxpayer-funded White House ballroom, a botched reflecting pool renovation, and plans for a grand ceremonial arch so subtle it might as well just read “ALL THIS IS ABOUT ME.”

Asked if Trump understands the problems Americans face in their daily lives, 73% said no, presumably pausing between extra shifts and rationing groceries to answer the phone. Only 38% consider him an effective world leader, and 57% say the 80-year-old president lacks the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively. So the guy who’s too tired to process a briefing but always energized enough to redesign the capital in his own image is cruising into the midterms with a platform of war, higher prices, personality cult architecture, and deportation theater. What could possibly go wrong for him?

The Senate has confirmed Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, because if there’s one thing the US surveillance state was missing, it was a guy who can’t say out loud that Trump lost in 2020. The vote was 51-47 on pure party lines, with Republicans once again speed-running the "what if we just put the president’s personal lawyer in charge of the nation’s secrets" experiment, but with extra clearance levels.

Clayton, who previously warmed the SEC chair for Trump and currently runs the southern district of New York, comes with a stellar résumé in weaponized loyalty. He dodged basic questions about the 2020 election, mused on CNBC that America has a "deep problem" with voting integrity, and couldn’t bring himself to say voter fraud isn’t a thing – despite every actual study screaming that it basically doesn’t exist. Perfect mindset for the guy who will be curating the intelligence "facts" to justify whatever election conspiracy Trump is workshopping this week.

The new DNI also tried his hand at press intimidation: his office issued wildly flawed subpoenas to New York Times reporters who had the nerve to write about Trump’s Qatari gift plane. Those subpoenas were yanked in court once a judge started asking pesky questions like "Why is this document a legal clown car?" So naturally, this is the man Republicans decided should now oversee the entire US intelligence community.

Clayton replaces Bill Pulte, the discount henchman who helped Trump turn the intelligence apparatus into an election-fraud fan club, oversaw layoffs, and was on duty when Trump declassified and blasted out cherry-picked intel to prop up his 2020 lies. Democrats called Clayton the less horrifying option than Pulte – which is like saying the smaller asteroid is the more responsible choice – while Ron Wyden warned he’d be the president’s "election conspiracy win" at the top of the spy pyramid. The Senate heard that and responded: sounds great, ship the briefings to Mar-a-Lago.

The Trump FCC has decided that the real threat to America isn’t mass surveillance by US companies, unregulated AI, or critical infrastructure held together with duct tape and vibes. No, it’s Chinese humanoid robots and power inverters. So they’ve banned “advanced robotic devices” from China — humanoids, robot dogs, and other metal friends — because they might collect data, help foreign intelligence, or be remotely commandeered. Unlike, say, every smart TV, phone, car, doorbell camera, and toaster already in American homes.

Because one crackdown is never enough, the FCC also went after connected power inverters — the stuff that lets renewable energy and batteries hook into grids and data centers. China makes most of them, which is inconvenient for an administration that wants to shout “reindustrialize America” while quietly making sure anything with a Chinese circuit board is treated like a sleeper cell. An anonymous Trump official solemnly declared that “economic security is national security,” which is a poetic way of saying: we’re using national security law as a trade policy sledgehammer again.

The ban technically only hits future models, but the FCC helpfully notes it can yank approvals for devices already on the market. So US companies and data centers get to guess which products will be retroactively turned into forbidden techno-contraband the next time Trump needs a headline about being tough on China. Meanwhile, the same administration that can’t secure basic election infrastructure is convinced it’s heroically defending freedom by keeping out robot dogs and solar hardware. Truly a nuanced, multi-faceted policy agenda — if you squint hard enough and ignore reality.

Democrats are apparently running on the bold new message of "what if eggs were cheaper," while a not-insignificant portion of the country’s political apparatus, led by President Trump, is still busy insisting that math, ballots, and reality cheated him. Some party leaders are gently suggesting that maybe, possibly, also mentioning the whole "President openly undermining elections with made-up fraud claims" thing could be worth a line or two between talking points on rent and grocery prices.

Because nothing says functioning democracy like one major party screaming that elections are rigged whenever they lose, while the other nervously checks polling crosstabs to see if it’s "too negative" to bring up the part where the guy in the Oval Office keeps trying to delegitimize voting. Affordability absolutely matters — hard to enjoy your civic freedoms if you can’t afford lunch — but if Trump’s lies about election fraud keep shaping the rules of the game, voters may soon discover that the only thing cheaper than their wages is the value of their ballot.

The Brendan Carr–run FCC has decided that if you can’t win the argument, you can always threaten the broadcast license. After Donald and Melania Trump got mad at ABC, the agency yanked eight ABC stations into an “extremely unusual” early license renewal process, because nothing says “small government” like using federal power to punish a late-night host.

A bipartisan lineup of former FCC heavyweights — Reagan’s Mark Fowler, George HW Bush’s Alfred Sikes, Obama’s Tom Wheeler, and assorted top staff — filed a blistering warning that this stunt is “unprecedented” and a “grave violation” of both the Communications Act and the Constitution. Translation: this isn’t edgy deregulation; it’s the government putting a gun on the table and pointing it at the press. They note that the petitions from the Media Research Center and the Center for American Rights demand the FCC police “bias” and editorial choices, which is a polite legal way of saying: state-run media, but make it American.

The ex-officials spell it out: Carr and the Trump administration are running a “sustained campaign” of legal threats against outlets that air speech Trump dislikes, sending a “chilling message” to every broadcaster in the country — air criticism and we’ll see how much you like license limbo. ABC’s stations now get to sit in regulatory purgatory with no clear timeline, watching a supposedly independent agency test-drive the idea that the First Amendment is optional if the president’s feelings are hurt.

Julie Masino is stepping down as CEO of Cracker Barrel, nearly a year after discovering the hard way that the most dangerous role in American business is Chief Logo Officer Under Trumpism. The company tried to modernize by quietly retiring "Uncle Herschel," the overalls-wearing man leaning against a barrel, and was immediately accused of being both "woke" and "sterile and soulless"—a fun two-for-one special in reactionary branding discourse.

Donald Trump, who apparently has nothing more pressing to do than rage-scroll restaurant logos, jumped in to demand on social media: “WTF is wrong with Cracker Barrel?!” and insisted the company "admit a mistake." The corporation, bravely standing up for its creative vision, instantly folded and reverted to the old logo, because nothing says corporate independence like obeying a 79-year-old man’s all-caps tantrum about a drawing.

Masino later told Glenn Beck she felt "fired by America," which is one way to describe being publicly flogged because you offended the nation’s most powerful nostalgia cult. Meanwhile, the article casually notes Cracker Barrel’s actual history of discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers and Black customers, reminding everyone that the real scandal in conservative America isn’t decades of racist and homophobic practices—it’s what happens to the cartoon on the sign.

As new CEO David Deno gushes about Cracker Barrel’s “timeless appeal” and “deep connection with guests across generations,” the political boycotts roll on: Democrats and Republicans alike are now shopping based on vibes and vendettas, while Trump and his imitators keep turning basic corporate decisions into loyalty tests. The message to CEOs is clear: you can systematically discriminate and settle for millions, but if you touch the culture-war comfort food mascot, that’s when the pitchforks come out.

Andrew and Tristan Tate — the misogynist influencers turned alleged rapist–sex trafficker duo — didn’t just wander into America. They were effectively airlifted in, after some suspiciously well-timed “diplomatic moves” from the Trump administration helped them leave Romania, where they were under house arrest on serious charges, and resettle in the U.S. Their lawyer all but winked into the camera: “Do the math. These guys are on the plane.” Now they’ve been re-arrested in Miami and face extradition to the UK, but not before enjoying a comfy stint as imported culture-war mascots for MAGA.

On the right, the Tates aren’t an aberration; they’re the user manual. Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” presidency normalized a politics where male supremacy is the glue holding together Christian theocrats, Silicon Valley eugenics bros, podcast warlords, and every guy whose personality is just three hours of YouTube rage. Tate’s alleged real-world violence simply matches the rhetoric: domination of women as entertainment, business model, and political identity.

The punchline: Democrats are mostly treating this as a scheduling conflict rather than a political gift. Instead of hanging Trump with his own pet predators and making the Tate saga Exhibit A in how MAGA’s hatred of women bleeds into hatred of democracy, party strategists are busy panic-fundraising $20m for “Speaking with American Men” and recruiting “manly man” candidates to reassure fragile dudes that feminism won’t steal their truck. The result is a stunning bipartisan consensus: male supremacy is a serious, structural problem … that no one in power actually wants to confront.