The Trump Presidency Timeline

Donald Trump is running his usual playbook on the Federal Reserve: demand lower interest rates, insult the Fed chair as “stupid” when he doesn’t comply, and then unleash the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell for the high crime of… talking about building renovations. In other words, it’s the same authoritarian power grab as everywhere else in his administration, just with more marble and fewer children in cages.

Trump also fired Fed governor Lisa Cook in August over mortgage-fraud allegations that first appeared on social media, with no investigation, no hearing, and no due process. A lower court called nonsense and temporarily reinstated her, so naturally the White House sprinted to the Supreme Court to ask the six-justice MAGA supermajority to bless Dear Leader’s right to purge independent officials at will. This is all part of the conservative legal movement’s beloved unitary executive fantasy, where the president can fire anyone, anytime, for any reason, and the only check is “elections” – which is very convenient if you’re also busy undermining elections.

The twist: the same court that cheerfully greenlit Trump’s firings at the NLRB and FTC suddenly got very concerned about statutory limits and independence once it was the Fed’s turn. The justices, who have been busy “making war on independent agencies”, are now carving out a special exception for the central bank, because nothing says principled constitutionalism like deciding the law means one thing for labor regulators and another for the people who set interest rates for JPMorgan. Amy Coney Barrett is suddenly fretting over economists’ warnings that firing Cook could trigger a recession, and Brett Kavanaugh is worried that if Trump can purge Fed officials at will, a future Democratic president might do the same to his team. What goes around comes around, and apparently that’s the one thing this Court won’t allow.

So the Court may actually slap Trump’s hand here – not because they’ve discovered a newfound love for checks and balances, but because destabilizing the Fed might tank markets and upset donors. Independent agencies that protect workers or consumers? Totally expendable under the new imperial presidency. But the Fed, the quasi-private temple of global finance? That gets wrapped in constitutional bubble wrap. The message from the Roberts Court is clear: Trump can centralize power and purge watchdogs all he wants, as long as he doesn’t mess with the interest-rate machine that keeps the oligarchy happy. But sure, tell us again about their neutral, principled jurisprudence.

The Trump justice department has discovered an exciting new way to be "tough on crime": stop funding the people who catch criminals. The DOJ has slashed money and training for law enforcement investigating child sex crimes, including canceling the 2025 National Law Enforcement Training on Child Exploitation because nothing says "protect the children" like pulling the plug on the one conference that teaches cops how to track predators using AI and new platforms. Prosecutors now have to beg to justify basic things like training, trial prep, and meeting with victims, and the answer is almost always no—because apparently the "core mission" of the justice department is not prosecuting child predators.

Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) taskforces are losing their annual grants, meetings between DOJ, ICAC commanders, NCMEC, and tech companies have been quietly killed off, and investigators are left to "beg and plead" other sources for money just to afford the software and staff needed to find abused kids. The work is already traumatizing and isolating, but sure, let's also cut off the professional support network that keeps people from burning out. Meanwhile, the department refuses to release the full investigative files on convicted child sex trafficker and Trump pal Jeffrey Epstein, but insists it can both protect children and use taxpayer dollars efficiently. In other words: we absolutely could go after child predators, we just choose not to—and please stop asking about Epstein.

Law enforcement who once thought this administration would be "pro-law enforcement" and serious about trafficking are now describing the situation as "disheartening"—a very polite way of saying "we're being kneecapped from above while they cosplay as defenders of children on TV." But hey, if you gut anti-trafficking programs, starve survivor support, and make it harder to prosecute child sex offenders, you can save a few bucks and keep some old friends comfortable. Law and order, Trump-style.

Donald Trump saw a massive winter storm barreling across half the country and decided it was the perfect time to log on to Truth Social and yell: “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???” Because nothing says serious national leadership like confusing the weather outside your window with global climate trends that every major scientific body on Earth has been screaming about for decades.

Scientists, who tragically still think facts matter, point out that this very storm is linked to a disrupted polar vortex and an Arctic that’s heating up to four times faster than the rest of the planet. In other words, the thing Trump is using to mock climate science is being made worse by the climate crisis he insists is a hoax. Winters in the US are warming faster than other seasons, cold snaps are getting shorter, record hot days are crushing cold ones, glaciers are disappearing, ski resorts are dying—but sure, one big blizzard totally cancels out physics, decades of data, and basic literacy.

So while 230 million Americans brace for freezing temperatures, icy roads, and power outages, the guy who was president and wants the job back is publicly insisting that reality doesn’t exist if it’s snowing. Fossil fuels keep burning, the planet keeps heating, and Trump keeps doing what he does best: weaponizing full-stupid anti-science nonsense to give polluters cover, because nothing screams “America First” like making sure your grandkids inherit a climate that wants them dead.

Todd Blanche, Trump’s criminal defense lawyer turned Deputy Attorney General, allegedly looked at federal conflict-of-interest law, shrugged, and said, "What if we just didn’t?" An ethics watchdog complaint says Blanche ordered DOJ to shut down crypto investigations and disband the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team while personally holding at least $159,000 in crypto-related assets. In other words, he didn’t just pick winners and losers in the market — he picked himself.

This is the same Todd Blanche who signed an ethics agreement promising to dump his crypto within 90 days and avoid anything that could affect his digital coin stash. Instead, he issued an April memo declaring Biden’s crypto crackdowns "regulation by prosecution," torched the enforcement team that had actually won cases, and watched as his bitcoin jumped an estimated 34% in value before he finally "divested" — by gifting it to his adult children and grandchild, because nothing says "public service" like turning DOJ policy into a family wealth transfer event.

The Campaign Legal Center’s complaint politely calls this "blatant" and asks the DOJ inspector general to investigate whether a crime was committed, which is adorable given that Blanche is literally the No. 2 at the same department he may have just used as a personal crypto pump. The penalties on paper are up to five years in prison, but sure, we’re definitely going to see the sitting Deputy AG prosecuted by the agency he helps run for enriching his own portfolio while dismantling white-collar enforcement.

Blanche, who helped get Trump through 34 felony convictions and then watched two other criminal cases evaporate when his client retook the White House, is now busy remaking the Justice Department into a sort of legal protection racket for friends of the regime — from personally interviewing Ghislaine Maxwell to telling the crypto industry that the "regulatory weaponization" era is over. The market loved it, enforcement hated it, and the rule of law is somewhere under the bus with the rest of American democracy — but hey, the grandkids’ wallets are looking fantastic.

Donald Trump has apparently updated the presidential seal to read: “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” After an ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Trump immediately rushed to Truth Social to declare that Good was part of a “Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate” who had “viciously ran over” the officer — a claim that collapsed the second anyone watched the video showing Ross was never knocked down and calmly walked away after shooting her three times.

Because nothing says “law and order” like inventing a terrorist attack that didn’t happen, Trump’s lie became the official party line. Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem eagerly branded Good a “rioter and domestic terrorist,” and VP JD Vance chimed in by calling her a “deranged leftist.” In other words, the federal government is now running on a simple operating principle: if state violence looks bad on camera, just declare the victim a terrorist and dare people to argue with you.

This is the same magical thinking Trump applies to everything else: insisting there’s “no inflation” while food prices are up 3.1% and coffee is up nearly 20%, claiming gas is $1.99 “in much of the country” while the national average sits over $2.80, and bragging about cutting drug prices by 500%, 1,400%, or maybe 3,000% — numbers that would make a sixth-grade math teacher file an ethics complaint. Meanwhile he’s still pushing that Ukraine started its own war, Portland is burning to the ground, Obama founded ISIS, the Capitol police caused Jan. 6, and oh yes, Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets in Ohio.

What ties it all together is the authoritarian core: Trump is openly testing how far he can replace observable reality with presidential fan fiction, knowing rightwing media will dutifully repeat it and his base will treat it as scripture. When the president can watch a video of an ICE killing and then order everyone to pretend it shows the opposite, that isn’t just lying — that’s practice for government by pure propaganda. But sure, tell us more about how this is all about “owning the libs.”