The Trump Presidency Timeline
Documenting the chaos since day one. 763 entries and counting.
white house launches official snuff propaganda channel

The President of the United States, using a woman’s murder as a campaign reel, because there’s no bottom if you keep digging.
Trump paired the video with a screed about "temporary protective status" (nailed the name, champ) and Haitians, continuing his long-running attempt to turn an entire nationality into a talking point. This is the same guy who falsely claimed Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were "eating the pets" of locals, a story that started with JD Vance and now sits at the heart of administration policy. DHS, for its part, has been churning out crime-porn clips on social media as if Stephen Miller is personally programming a government-run "black crime" vertical—something we know he literally pitched to Breitbart in hundreds of emails.
The cherry on this horror sundae: the alleged killer is homeless, the victim was an immigrant from Bangladesh, and Trump is once again lying about immigration status to fold a single horrific crime into his plan to deport more than a quarter of the US population. Courts keep blocking the administration’s attempts to strip temporary protected status from Haitians and other migrants, but that hasn’t slowed the propaganda machine. We now have a government that treats violent death as marketing content and racialized fear as official policy. Woodrow Wilson invited the Klan to the White House; Trump just gave them a social media team and a DHS press office.
Source: theguardian.com
trump fixes art history by scaring museum directors out the door

Smithsonian leadership, seen here in its natural habitat: running for the nearest exit while Trump drafts another executive order about "truth".
While Chiu politely talks about Covid, digital innovation, and expanding under-recognized artists, Trump is busy issuing an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” — always reassuring when the guy who tried to overturn an election decides to define "truth". The order accuses the Smithsonian of pushing narratives that say American and Western values can sometimes be harmful, which is apparently now illegal thought. The administration then demanded advance access to plans for the Smithsonian’s 250th-anniversary exhibits, because nothing screams "small government" like Washington micromanaging museum wall text.
Meanwhile, other directors have been pushed or pressured out: Stephanie Stebich removed after staff complaints, Kevin Young stepping down, and National Portrait Gallery head Kim Sajet resigning after Trump publicly bragged he’d fired her for being too supportive of diversity and inclusion. So yes, just a "moment of change" at the Smithsonian — the kind of change where a president treats national museums as propaganda factories and professionals quietly head for the exits. America’s cultural heritage is safe, as long as it agrees to flatter Dear Leader.
Source: theguardian.com
trump’s doj discovers christianity, immediately uses it as a weapon

Kristen Clarke, seen here in 2024, back when the Civil Rights Division was enforcing laws instead of cosplaying as a persecution fantasy writing room.
Source: nbcnews.com
trump doj discovers bold new legal theory: victims get nothing

Behold: a civil rights "settlement" where the highlighted line shows the money going to more immigration cops instead of the people who got fleeced. The highlighter is doing more oversight than Trump’s DOJ.
Source: propublica.org
dhs defends right to shoot your eye out for the first amendment

DHS demonstrating its nuanced understanding of the First Amendment by turning a student journalist’s eye into a cautionary tale.
Source: theguardian.com
trump shakes nato, sees if democracy breaks

NATO chief Mark Rutte walks into the White House to see if there’s still a Western alliance or if it’s been replaced by a Truth Social post.
Donald Trump is once again playing nuclear Jenga with the world order, casually threatening to walk the U.S. out of NATO like it's a failed casino instead of the cornerstone of Western security. So now NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has to show up at the White House to perform the diplomatic equivalent of talking a drunk guy off the roof while he’s live‑streaming.
The alliance that deterred the Soviet Union, checks Russian aggression, and keeps a lid on World War III is now being treated by Trump as a subscription service he might cancel if he doesn’t get more compliments and cash. Authoritarians in Moscow and Beijing are thrilled; nothing says "America First" like methodically dismantling the very alliance that keeps America from being picked off piece by piece.
So Rutte arrives in Washington to reassure everyone that NATO is still a thing, while Trump test-drives the idea of abandoning mutual defense like a busted prenup. The message to allies is crystal clear: the reliability of U.S. security guarantees now depends on the mood swings of a guy who thinks Article 5 is either a gym membership clause or a subpoena.
Source: npr.org
one big beautiful hunger games act

Arizona’s SNAP office, where the computers are from 1987 and the policy ideas are from the Gilded Age.
The Megabill genius: shove a bigger share of SNAP costs onto states, jack up work requirements, strip exemptions from people who are homeless or aging out of foster care, then threaten states with massive fines unless they slash their "error rate" to 6%. Arizona’s DES, already gutted by GOP tax-cut fever dreams and 500 layoffs, responds by making it nearly impossible to apply: jammed phone lines, no in-person interviews, "1980s technology" doing 2020s triage. Families like 25-year-old Charisma Garcia’s just go straight to food banks because the government safety net now comes with a busy signal and a line out the door.
While Gov. Katie Hobbs scrambles for a few million here and there to patch the system she’s legally required to sabotage, the structural design is pure Trump-era cruelty: create a "terrible incentive" where states must choose between feeding people and avoiding nine-figure penalties. Then step up to a microphone and call the resulting hunger a policy triumph. American exceptionalism, but make it administrative starvation.
Source: propublica.org
trump’s fighter-jet poop video is now official u.s. foreign policy

Artist’s impression of U.S. foreign policy: Trump in a crown, flying a fighter jet, dumping digital poo on protesters while his future presidential library ascends to heaven in a golden elevator – all helpfully labeled ‘official White House communications.’
Source: theguardian.com
trump calls obeying the ucmj 'sedition punishable by death'

Sen. Elissa Slotkin campaigns in Iowa while somewhere, Trump furiously googles whether ‘disagreeing with me’ can be added to the federal death penalty statute.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin is doing the ritual Iowa corn-pilgrimage that every vaguely sentient Democrat has to do before the national press will admit they own a map. She’s selling herself as a pragmatic Midwestern normie who can help the country stumble out of the Trump hurricane and back into something resembling democracy, or at least a government that doesn’t threaten to vaporize foreign civilian infrastructure between Fox hits.
The real plot twist is buried mid-story: Trump has already accused Slotkin and other Democrats of “seditious behavior” — explicitly “punishable by death” — because they posted a video calmly reminding military and intel personnel that they are legally obligated to refuse illegal orders. You know, the thing the Uniform Code of Military Justice actually requires. Trump’s Justice Department dutifully tried to indict them for this unforgivable crime of citing the law, and even that MAGA-ified DOJ couldn’t make the charges stick. Slotkin then received a bomb threat at her home, because when the Dear Leader labels you a traitor, some random patriot inevitably volunteers to do the ‘patriotic’ thing.
While Slotkin talks about “Midwest pragmatism,” “Team Fight,” and trying to win back states Trump has turned into personal fiefdoms, Trump is out here threatening “destructive” attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran and raging that telling soldiers not to commit war crimes is treason. Slotkin frames her Iowa trip as part of a broader effort to build a bench of Democrats who can win in red-leaning areas; Trump frames her as an enemy of the state who deserves death for reminding people the president is not actually a monarch. One side is talking about health care affordability in a craft beer bar, the other is fantasizing about executing senators for quoting the UCMJ. But yes, tell us more about how the real problem is ‘polarization.’
Source: nbcnews.com
trump swaps one extremist for a house-trained extremist

Trump points approvingly at his newest Congressional action figure: now with 30% more mass-deportation rhetoric and a removable spine.
australia introduces exciting new visa category: 'escaped trump's america alive'

Happy family photo, or evidence exhibit A in the case of 'Why people are literally emigrating from the American Dream now.'
Trump’s America is going so tremendously well that the president of the Center for Victims of Torture – a group that literally helps people recover from secret police and dictators – is packing up his American-born kids and fleeing back to Australia because the U.S. now feels too authoritarian and dangerous. Within days of Trump’s second inauguration, the administration froze US$20m in funding for CVT by email, forcing the furlough of 430 staff and the shutdown of torture-rehab programs in refugee camps across the Middle East and Africa. Apparently the real torture was giving traumatized people therapy instead of sending more money to the Pentagon.
Once the funding was gutted, the government moved on to the fun part: kidnapping legal immigrants. ICE flooded Minneapolis, grabbed six CVT clients who were in the U.S. legally – including two who were abducted right out of their immigration check-ins – and flew them 1,800km away to a Texas detention center. While Trump publicly jokes about being “dictator for one day” and gushes over Kim Jong-un’s instant obedience, his loyalists are busy trying to criminally charge critics like James Comey, flirting with rolling back same-sex marriage protections, and turning migrants’ lives into a choice between “Alligator Alcatraz” and a Salvadoran prison. Freedom™ now comes with a side of state terror and a 40% Pentagon budget increase.
The punchline: this time Americans voted for it. Trump won the popular vote in 2024, and his followers are already rocking “Trump 2028” hats despite that awkward Constitution thing. Steve Bannon calls him an “instrument of divine will” who must stay in power “at least one more term,” which is definitely the kind of normal, chill thing you say in a functioning democracy. So Simon Adams does the unthinkable patriotic act: he leaves. He’d rather live in a country that still believes in democracy, human rights, and science than stick around in a place where performative cruelty is national policy and the crocodile of authoritarianism is already picking out its next snack.
Source: theguardian.com
senator wonders if not supporting the coup was bad politics

Bill Cassidy, seen here carefully explaining that voting against an insurrection is, regrettably, bad for his brand.
Sen. Bill Cassidy went on national television to bravely confess that his vote to convict Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection “might be” a liability in a Republican primary — as if the problem here is his campaign prospects, not the whole "violent attempt to overturn an election" part. When the party line is that backing the Constitution is a risky brand decision, you’re not a political movement anymore, you’re a loyalty cult with better stationary.
This is the modern GOP job interview: "Did you support Trump’s effort to cling to power after losing?" Answer "yes" and you’re a patriot. Answer "no" and, as Cassidy helpfully explains, you’ve created a messaging challenge for yourself with the base that now treats not supporting a coup as a character flaw. American democracy remains technically alive, but only because its would‑be executioners are still busy polling the focus groups.
Source: nbcnews.com
trump’s lawyer-in-chief swears the revenge ministry is totally independent

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche bravely explains that the Justice Department is not targeting Trump’s enemies, it’s merely coincidentally aligned with the president’s hit list.
Source: nbcnews.com
trump discovers the delete key is mightier than the law

Artist’s impression of the Trump Presidential Library: no books, no records, just a giant golden participation trophy for getting away with it.
The Trump administration spent last week workshopping new ways to make sure no one can ever prove what they did. First, the Justice Department coughed up a 52-page fever dream from election-denying Alito clerk T. Elliot Gaiser declaring the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional – because apparently Congress has no "legislative purpose" in asking presidents not to shred history like a mob accountant. Conveniently, this would let Trump decide which evidence of wrongdoing lives, dies, or gets fed to the Mar-a-Lago pool filter.
As a visual aid, Trump also dropped an AI-rendered promo for his "presidential library" – a Miami waterfront skyscraper that looks less like an archive and more like a timeshare for oligarchs. He helpfully clarified, "I don’t believe in building libraries or museums," which is at least the most honest thing he’s said about education. Instead of documents, the plan is a golden statue of himself and a 747 in the atrium, because when your legacy is pardoning January 6 rioters, purging DOJ and FBI officials who investigated them, and making entire databases of insurrection charges vanish, there’s not much left to shelve besides the merch.
To really cement the amnesia project, Trump fired the actual Archivist of the United States and replaced her with Marco Rubio and a senior archivist from the Richard Nixon Foundation, because if you’re going to erase presidential crimes, you might as well bring in the franchise players. Meanwhile, cronies like Corey Lewandowski reportedly strut around DHS bragging that Trump will pardon them for anything, while figures like Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi hover in the gray zone of maybe-pre-pardoned, maybe-just-blackmailable. The Supreme Court’s 2024 gift of near-total presidential immunity is the cherry on top: corrupt pardons and document destruction now come bundled with a constitutional warranty.
Democrats are left talking about truth commissions and shaming website-scrubbers, which is adorable against an administration that openly markets itself as a historical Etch A Sketch. The message from Trump World is brutally simple: loyalty gets you impunity, impunity gets you amnesia, and amnesia keeps the grift going. The American people’s right to "reconstruct and come to terms with their history" has been replaced with an AI video of a fake library and a real plan to burn the archives.
Source: theguardian.com
welcome to doge country: highly qualified, totally unemployed

Laid-off civil servants in DC, bravely doing their part to help Elon Musk test his theory that you can run a superpower like a meme coin.
Source: theguardian.com
trump turns iran war into america’s dumbest esports league

Just another day in the content mines: one drone for Olympic slo‑mo, one drone for casually violating international law.
The US has launched an illegal, unprovoked war on Iran and instead of bothering with constitutional niceties like Congress or declared war, the Trump administration has decided to market it like a cross between the Winter Olympics and Call of Duty. One minute drones are giving us gorgeous slow‑mo shots of skiers, the next they’re serving up snackable war crimes content of Iranian civilians and infrastructure getting vaporized, all trimmed into neat two‑minute clips for your doomscrolling pleasure.
This isn’t just aesthetic overlap; it’s policy. The White House hasn’t even pretended to justify the war or seek authorization. Instead, it’s busy meme-ifying mass death, dropping Hollywood and gaming imagery into official videos and reframing the whole thing as sports fandom: no context, no bodies, just clean highlight reels of "targets" exploding. The Pentagon used drone racing as a recruiting pipeline and gear incubator, then quietly graduated to the big leagues: Shahed knockoffs and US-made Lucas drones as the defining weapons of a forever streamable conflict.
Trump’s own briefings are now reportedly daily hype videos of “stuff blowing up”, edited by a team of social media managers like they’re cutting a Wembanyama dunk package. The commander-in-chief is basically watching a personalized war TikTok while the rest of the country is nudged to consume the Iran campaign like March Madness: passive, remote, and stripped of any human cost. Who needs constitutional checks and public debate when you’ve got drone footage, EDM, and a president treating an undeclared war as his favorite new content vertical?
Source: theguardian.com
wisconsin holds quiet little election to decide if 2026 democracy lives or dies

Wisconsin voters bravely attempt to choose between 'pro-democracy' and 'maybe let Trump overturn the next election, who can say?' on a random Tuesday.
Source: theguardian.com
trump discovers the first amendment is optional now

Trump at the podium, explaining that the First Amendment is very good and very strong, except for when it annoys him, in which case: prison.
Donald Trump, now fully committed to speedrunning the authoritarian playbook, used a White House press conference to threaten that his administration will tell a media outlet: "national security, give [the source] up or go to jail" over reporting on a missing US airman in Iran. He didn’t bother naming the outlet or the reporter, because the point wasn’t precision – the point was to broadcast that the government will happily dangle jail time over journalists until they cough up their sources. The First Amendment remains technically in effect, but only because Trump hasn’t figured out how to issue executive orders against the Constitution in all caps yet.
This is not a one-off tantrum; it’s a continuation. The same administration already sent the FBI to raid Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home after she used more than 1,000 anonymous sources to document Trump’s federal government clown show. Now the message to the press is clear: report on what the government doesn’t like, and the president will personally fantasize about you in an orange jumpsuit. As the Freedom of the Press Foundation gently reminded him, journalists don’t work for the government, and the First Amendment doesn’t magically disappear every time a president says "national security" like it’s a Hogwarts spell. But Trump’s second-term project is obvious: turn leaks into crimes, journalism into collaboration, and the press corps into a parole board meeting.
Source: theguardian.com
when jamie dimon is the voice of restraint, you’ve really screwed up

Jamie Dimon, pausing between warning about autocrats and being sued for $5 billion by one.
As the US‑Israel war with Iran grinds into its sixth week and economists mutter the words "$170 oil" and "global recession" like a horror spell, Trump’s contribution to statesmanship is to tell other governments to "go get your own oil" from the Gulf – by force. So while the president plays armchair warlord and jacks up tariffs on allies for fun, Dimon gently notes that maybe, just maybe, US foreign economic policy should also help other countries grow instead of shoving them toward "bad actors" and vassal status. When the CEO of America’s biggest bank is the one warning about the dangers of autocracy and economic fragmentation, and the president is out here LARPing as an oil‑pirate‑in‑chief, you don’t have a foreign policy. You have a live‑action demonstration of how to torch a global order in under two terms.
Dimon, a lifelong Democrat who once bragged he could beat Trump because he actually earned his money, is now reduced to writing politely worded hostage notes about not blowing up the entire alliance structure. Trump, meanwhile, responds with tariffs on allies, war‑inflamed energy prices, and legal threats against the bank that dared treat him like a normal high‑risk client instead of a sun‑god. American democracy: now outsourced to risk memos from Wall Street.
Source: theguardian.com
supreme court helps bannon un-do his homework after he already failed the class

Steve Bannon, seen here contemplating which law to ignore next, moments before the justice system sends him a retroactive apology card.
Source: nbcnews.com