The Trump Presidency Timeline

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.”

The National Institutes of Health, formerly known as the world’s biggest public funder of biomedical research and now apparently a branch office of the Heritage Foundation, has announced it will no longer fund any research using human fetal tissue from elective abortions. NIH director Jay Bhattacharya – because nothing says “cutting-edge medicine” like elevating a Great Barrington Declaration guy – declared that this is all about “advancing science” and “reflecting the values of the American people,” which is an extremely polite way of saying: theocrats yelled, Trump listened, science loses.

This is the most sweeping move yet in the administration’s long-running crusade to kneecap fetal tissue research, which has been crucial for work on diabetes, Alzheimer’s, infertility, and, minor detail, vaccines for things like polio, hepatitis A, and rabies. Researchers can still use tissue from miscarriages, but scientists overwhelmingly prefer donated tissue from abortions because it’s actually usable and not riddled with the genetic problems that often cause miscarriages in the first place. In other words, the NIH just took a proven, life-saving research pipeline and smashed it in favor of whatever “breakthrough technologies” Jay’s friends in the culture war think sound holy enough on Fox News.

The ban takes effect immediately, yanking support from roughly $60m worth of 2024 projects and sending a very clear message: if your work offends the anti-abortion lobby, you’re done. The administration is calling this “modernization,” which is an interesting rebrand for “we’re discarding decades of scientific progress so Trump can keep his base hopped up on moral panic.” But sure, canceling research that helped create vaccines and fight major diseases is just another big win for “pro-life” governance – as long as you don’t count the actual living people who’ll suffer.

Donald Trump went on Fox News to explain that NATO has never really done anything for the United States, casually erasing two decades of allied blood in Afghanistan with the claim that they "stayed a little off the front lines." In other words: the guy who dodged Vietnam with bone spurs is now rewriting the history of a war where 3,500 coalition troops died, including 457 British service members, as if they were all just doing cosplay in Kabul.

British politicians across the spectrum, including Labour’s Emily Thornberry and Conservative Ben Obese-Jecty – who actually served in Afghanistan, unlike the TV president – called the remarks an "absolute insult" and "disgraceful." Former officers lined up to point out that Trump’s version of events bears no resemblance to reality, while politely not adding "because he’s making it up on live television again." But sure, let’s keep letting him undermine NATO’s Article 5 commitments on cable news, because nothing says "collective security" like a U.S. president publicly wondering if the alliance should even bother showing up next time America is attacked.

Trump also complained that the U.S. has been "very good to Europe" and that it "has to be a two-way street," which is an interesting take given that the only time Article 5 has ever been invoked was when NATO rushed to defend the United States after 9/11. Allies sent troops, fought, and died in a war Washington started – but in Trump’s telling, they basically took a scenic tour while America did all the work. It’s not just historically illiterate; it’s part of the ongoing project to delegitimize NATO so that when he guts it, his base will cheer and call it a "win."

The Trump administration is taking the classic Reagan-era "Mexico City policy" – the one that already blocks foreign groups from getting US funds if they so much as whisper the word "abortion" – and cranking it up to full theocracy. This time, it’s not just about family planning or even just global health funding; Trump is slapping a global gag rule on roughly $30bn in foreign aid, and extending it to anything that smells like DEI, LGBTQ rights, or recognition that trans people exist. Because nothing says "pro-life" like cutting funding to the clinics and programs that actually keep people alive.

Under the new rules, any international or US-based NGO operating abroad that uses American assistance can’t support "gender ideology" – which, in rightwing translation, means: no DEI work, no trans rights, no non-binary people, no complex thoughts beyond "there are only two genders, because Trump signed a piece of paper that says so". The administration is also re-upping its ban on funding anything it calls "abortion as a form of family planning", but won’t explain what that means, which is perfect if your policy goal is maximum fear, minimum clarity.

This is the logical next step in Trump’s crusade to purge DEI and trans people from federal policy: he’s already gutted DEI support at home, declared there are only two genders by executive order, and kneecapped research on racial and gender equity. Now he’s exporting the American culture war as a condition of foreign aid, turning US assistance into a loyalty oath to Christian nationalist ideology. In other words, if poor countries want vaccines, maternal health care, or development money, they have to sign up for "Make the World Straight and Cis Again". But sure, tell us more about how this is all about "freedom" and "human rights".

The Trump administration has discovered that ending a full-scale European war is just like closing on a casino in Atlantic City: you send a property developer and your son-in-law to Davos and Moscow, declare it's all down to "one issue," and hope nobody notices that the "issue" is carving up another country's territory. Enter Steve Witkoff, Trump donor and real-estate pal turned Ukraine envoy, confidently announcing that peace in Europe now hinges on a single, unnamed sticking point — which, purely by coincidence, appears to be the future status of Ukraine's industrial heartland in Donbas. Because nothing says rules-based international order like letting the guy who usually negotiates mall leases decide how much of your country you get to keep.

While Volodymyr Zelensky rides an overnight train out of a half-frozen Kyiv — where Russian strikes have knocked out heat, water, and power in the dead of winter — Trump is in Davos pitching a 20-point peace plan that is "90% ready," just like every infrastructure week. The "deal" on the table involves demilitarising part of Donbas into a "free economic zone" if Russia plays nice, plus a big question mark over who controls Europe's largest nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia. Meanwhile, Trump publicly muses that Putin is "ready to make a deal" but Zelensky is "less ready," which is a polite way of saying the guy whose cities are being bombed is not thrilled with the US president and his in-laws workshopping Ukraine's surrender terms with the Kremlin.

Back in Moscow, Dmitry Peskov says talks will continue on the "Ukrainian issue and other related topics," which is diplomatic code for "we like where this is going." Putin hasn't yet decided whether to grace Trump's absurd "Board of Peace on Gaza" with his presence, but the mere fact that this is a sentence anyone has to write tells you everything about the clown car running US foreign policy. Zelensky is still hoping to sign security and economic guarantees with Trump in Davos, but admits there's "one mile left" to go — presumably the same mile between "sovereign ally" and "chip in a Trump-branded global deal so Jared can claim he solved war." In other words, Ukraine bleeds, Europe panics, and America’s diplomacy is being run like a family side hustle.