The Trump Presidency Timeline

Donald Trump, a man whose relationship with facts is purely theoretical, has now ordered warning labels slapped on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to alert visitors to alleged “inaccurate information.” Yes, the guy who tried to Sharpie a hurricane map is accusing the historians of lying. The executive order instructs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the National Park Service to put up official U.S. government signage outside the museum basically saying, “Don’t believe the museum, believe the White House report we wrote about how the museum is bad.”

This is the latest episode in Trump’s campaign to turn the Smithsonian into a taxpayer-funded MAGA Heritage Foundation gift shop. After a July 4 White House report declared that museum leaders are “radical activists” who can’t be trusted to tell America’s story “honestly and in a way that is inspiring,” Trump is now using federal agencies and “all available authorities” to enforce his March 2025 order targeting funding for exhibits with “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology.” Translation: history that mentions racism, inequality, or non-triumphalist reality must be punished.

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch politely replied that the institution is actually driven by “scholarship, accuracy and an uncompromising commitment to tell the fullness of America’s story,” which is exactly the kind of dangerous extremism this White House cannot abide. Instead, visitors will now be helpfully directed to government-approved “locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history” — presumably somewhere between Trump’s Truth Social feed and the gift shop’s new Dear Leader: A Totally Not Divisive History of America coloring book.

Donald Trump’s traveling circus of security malpractice hit a new stop in Turkey, where he quietly ditched his shiny Qatari-gifted 747-8 for the older, actually-defended Air Force One after U.S. officials picked up what they considered a credible threat from Iranian proxy forces targeting him and his plane. Publicly, Trump claimed he was flying the old jet “for old time’s sake”; privately, it turns out the Secret Service was doing the radical, woke thing of not wanting the president blown out of the sky in his favorite foreign-donated status symbol.

The episode helpfully underlines what everyone but Trump already knew: the Qatar plane doesn’t have the same advanced defensive systems as the real Air Force One, but he pushed to get it into service anyway because nothing says "America First" like flying the commander-in-chief around in a gift from a Gulf monarchy. When reporters at the New York Times started asking inconvenient questions about the security risks, Trump’s Justice Department responded in the time-honored authoritarian fashion: subpoena the journalists over their coverage and try to scare them into silence. Those subpoenas have now been dropped "for now," which is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Meanwhile, Trump is out here bragging about his alleged "standing orders" to level Iran "at levels they’ve never seen before" if they kill him, while also insisting he’s open to diplomacy and that Tehran is being the "most serious" he’s ever seen them. So he’s simultaneously dangling apocalypse, flying around in a lightly armored Gulfstream ego project, and siccing the DOJ on reporters who point out the obvious security problems. The only consistent doctrine is that the U.S. government exists to protect one man’s body and one man’s brand, with the Constitution and press freedom strapped into the overhead bin as unsecured baggage.

The Trump-era FDA has been lovingly wrapping mifepristone in so much pointless red tape you’d think the pill was plutonium instead of one of the most studied and safest medications in reproductive healthcare. A federal judge in Virginia, Robert S Ballou, just pointed out the awkward truth: the agency’s restrictions are "arbitrary and capricious"—legalese for "you made this up because politics told you to"—and ordered the FDA to go back and actually reconsider them like a real regulatory body and not a subsidiary of the Federalist Society.

This all lands while the FDA has no permanent commissioner and is busy "reviewing" abortion pill rules at the urging of conservative lawmakers whose medical expertise begins and ends with campaign donations. Meanwhile, abortion providers in Virginia, Kansas, and Montana are stuck navigating special registration schemes and duplicative, inaccurate, and confusing paperwork that serve exactly zero medical purpose but do a fantastic job of slowing care and scaring patients. As clinics become lifelines for people forced to cross state lines for basic healthcare, a federal court has now gently suggested that maybe science and 25 years of safety data should matter more than the Trump administration’s ongoing war on bodily autonomy.

Advocates are calling the ruling "a win for science"—which, in Trump’s America, is basically an extremist position. While Louisiana runs to the Fifth Circuit begging judges to kill mail-order access and pharmacy prescriptions, this case is a reminder that the mifepristone fight has never been about safety. It’s about using the machinery of the state to make abortion as humiliating, delayed, and inaccessible as possible, then calling that "pro-life" and going to a fundraiser.

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s favorite Fox News cosplayer now LARPing as defense secretary, has decided the key to American military dominance is not strategy, logistics, or alliances, but checking every man over 30 for low T and juicing them up. Welcome to the High-T Department of War, where the solution to every problem is more hormone gel and a war crimes vibe check. If your testosterone is a little droopy, Uncle Sam is thrilled to subsidize your midlife crisis.

There’s just one tiny snag: a federal judge noticed that this same Pentagon insists hormone treatment is a fatal flaw that justifies banning transgender troops. Judge Ana Reyes, apparently still capable of basic logic, has ordered Hegseth & friends to explain why cis soldiers get taxpayer-funded testosterone replacement therapy, while trans troops are told that needing hormones makes them unfit for service. Trump’s own executive order is on the record demanding troops meet standards “without the benefit of routine medical treatment” – unless, apparently, that treatment is part of the administration’s masculinity pageant.

Medical experts, meanwhile, are standing off to the side like, "Hi, yes, just to be clear, blasting unnecessary testosterone into thousands of people can actually harm readiness, fertility, and long-term health." The Pentagon, which has spent years clutching its pearls about the supposed cost of gender-affirming care, is now tripping over itself to bankroll mass TRT for cis men because it polls well with the Joe Rogan demographic. Equal protection, military cohesion, evidence-based medicine – all sacrificed so the commander in chief can turn the armed forces into a taxpayer-funded podcast comment section.

Laura Loomer, professional outrage dispenser and Trump barnacle, flew to Kyiv, heard one (1) air raid siren, and suddenly realized that maybe Russia’s full-scale invasion is not, in fact, a Based Anti-Woke Liberation Tour. After years of calling Ukraine a land of “Nazi apologists” and recycling Kremlin fanfic for her followers, she is now posting about “moral clarity” and endorsing crushing Russian sanctions because, crucial detail, Iran wants Trump dead. Foreign policy, brought to you by the “will this hurt Dear Leader personally?” school of geopolitics.

The best part? Loomer’s new line is being treated as a major diplomatic development, because Zelenskyy says he’ll likely meet Trump in Washington while he’s in town for Lindsey Graham’s funeral. Trump jumped on Truth Social to grunt out a “Very good!!!!” about Loomer’s interview, which Kyiv commentators are reading as a sign the White House’s anti-Ukraine stance is softening. US strategy toward a live war zone now runs through a woman who just filmed herself eating a cheeseburger outside a missile-shredded McDonald’s to own… Vladimir Putin? Evangelicals get a bespoke message too: Loomer toured a bombed cathedral and explained you can’t really “protect Christianity” by, as she put it, trying to drone-strike Jesus.

Ukrainian officials, staring down ballistic missiles and daily civilian deaths, are understandably grateful for any crack in the MAGA-Russia bromance, so they’re rolling out the red carpet for Loomer and thanking her for her “courage” on social media. A former government adviser even calls this a historic break with Russian propaganda by part of the MAGA movement, which is a polite way of saying: we now depend on Trumpworld’s least hinged influencers to talk the base out of cheering for war crimes. American foreign policy has officially become a spin-off of the Trump Extended Universe, where a 15-minute Vatican chat and a Guardian write-up count as a “historic moment” in US-Ukraine relations.

The FDA’s outside advisory panel just voted 8-6 to relax restrictions on trendy injectable peptides like BPC-157, TB-500 and KPV, because who needs robust safety data when you’ve got Joe Rogan vibes and Instagram before-and-after photos? Government scientists warned there’s little evidence these compounds are safe or effective, but the panel bravely followed the science of: "my chiropractor’s podcast says it’s fine."

This nail-biter vote just happens to follow a quiet makeover of the panel’s membership, where more than half a dozen people with ties to the peptide industry were parachuted in — doctors, pharmacists, and consultants who directly work in the field and somehow all landed on the side of “let’s sell more peptides.” Meanwhile, the academics with no financial stake mostly voted no, apparently still clinging to the outdated notion that medicine should be based on data instead of TikTok trends.

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., self-described “big fan” of peptides and architect of the "Make America Healthy Again" influencer rebrand, now gets political cover to undo Biden-era restrictions and supercharge a market experts describe as a “wild west” of unregulated drugs. Telehealth grifters and longevity gurus like Gary Brecka — who literally sells this stuff — are poised to cash in as FDA policy conveniently aligns with their online storefronts. Regulation capture level: wellness MLM.

So the federal government is inching toward putting these compounds on the FDA’s "generally safe for pharmacies to make and sell" list, over the objections of its own scientists, to satisfy a market whipped up by celebrity podcasters and supplement pushers. America’s new health policy model is here: if you can’t prove it works, just lobby your way onto the panel and vote yourself a business plan.

The Trump administration has discovered a bold new way to honor American history: by making it dramatically easier to demolish it. To clear the path for Trump's proposed 250-foot triumphal arch on the National Mall, his allies are moving to weaken Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act — the boring little rule that currently forces federal agencies to consider whether they're about to pave over sacred tribal land, Black neighborhoods, or, say, anything older than a Trump casino bankruptcy.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which oversees this process, just happens to be stacked with Trump loyalists — he controls 21 of its 24 seats — and is now poised to "reinterpret" the law in a way that would make decades of preservation protections about as sturdy as a Trump University diploma. The council chair seat is conveniently vacant, so acting vice chair Travis Voyles is running the show while pushing through draft language to water down what counts as an "adverse effect" and what agencies actually have to do about it.

Preservation experts warn this isn't just about one gaudy arch; it's an open invitation to blast through historic neighborhoods, cultural landmarks, burial grounds, and tribal sites nationwide with fewer guardrails and less input from the people most affected. The White House and Interior Department, naturally, had nothing to say to NPR — presumably too busy designing the font for the gold-plated plaque on Trump's future arch while the rest of the country’s heritage gets put on the clearance rack.

Donald Trump marched into the Environmental Protection Agency – remember when that used to regulate things? – to unveil his latest consumer protection masterstroke: a non-binding "Ratepayer Protection Pledge" in which about 200 utilities, datacenter developers, and tech giants solemnly swear they definitely, totally, pinky-promise not to stick Americans with the power bill for the AI gold rush. Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, OpenAI, xAI and friends – the people driving the surge in electricity demand – are now also the people writing the rules about who pays for it. What could possibly go wrong.

Trump bragged that electricity rates for "80% of the power distributed in America" are being "kept in check" by this plan, which is a bold claim for a document with all the legal force of a change.org petition. Utility prices are already up 4% year-over-year, but the White House insists this voluntary vibes-based framework will ensure everyone building and powering datacenters covers their own costs instead of passing them on to families. Environmental groups, who have met a pledge or two before, describe it as a photo op with Big Tech that "won’t lower a single family’s electric bill" – a "paper-thin" promise from companies that haven’t bothered to show how any of this supposedly lowers costs.

As communities across the country revolt against water-guzzling, grid-straining AI datacenters – with New York passing a moratorium and even Greg Abbott calling for a rural Texas ban – Trump is out here yelling about "radical left communists" who want to "shut down all new development" while handing those same developers a regulatory participation trophy. Twenty-three GOP governors signed on, because nothing says "tough on corporate abuse" like asking Nextera and Duke Energy to self-regulate with a handshake and a press release. The Sierra Club and Evergreen Action are unimpressed, mostly because you can’t pay your electric bill with aspirational corporate promises, no matter how many times the president calls it "bold action".

The House has once again tried to break up with Trump's deeply illegal Iran war, passing a resolution 214–208 to remove U.S. forces from hostilities that Congress never actually authorized. This is the second time they've done this, because nothing says "functioning republic" like repeatedly reminding the president that wars are not supposed to be a solo project. Naturally, the measure is nonbinding, because the only thing more symbolic than congressional oversight is congressional backbone.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal calls it an "illegal war" with no mission, no strategy, and no end goal — so basically the foreign policy version of Trump's Twitter feed, but with 18 dead U.S. troops and nearly 500 injured since February. Trump, who campaigned on ending "forever wars," is now fully committed to starring in one, dismissing war powers votes as "meaningless" and blaming it all on "Trump Derangement Syndrome," which is a bold way of describing Congress reading the War Powers Resolution out loud.

Over in the Senate, Democrats tried their own war powers move and lost 47–49, because a few Republicans are still deeply committed to the radical notion that the president should be able to lob the country into war like it's a reality show season finale. The Senate even briefly passed a war powers resolution last month, then reversed itself after Trump complained — a helpful live demonstration of how separation of powers becomes separation of spine the moment the Dear Leader tweets.

Jim Jordan and the House Judiciary Republicans have helpfully clarified what “oversight” means in Trump’s second term: if you investigate the Dear Leader, you get investigated for investigating the Dear Leader. The GOP-controlled committee has sent a criminal referral for former special counsel Jack Smith to Trump’s acting attorney general Todd Blanche, accusing Smith of lying to Congress because he described getting lawmakers’ toll records and not, apparently, the magical text-message treasure trove Republicans now wish they had asked him about. The new standard appears to be: if the witness doesn’t answer the question you should have asked in your head, that’s a felony.

Smith’s lawyers pointed out the obvious — that he gave “truthful, responsive answers,” and that the real "crime" is that Trump has “repeatedly ordered that Mr Smith be prosecuted and jailed.” So yes, the House is now doing direct contract work for Trump’s revenge fantasies, and they even put it in writing. Jamie Raskin politely translated the stunt: Republicans are mad Jack Smith isn’t a mind reader, and this referral would get laughed out of any actual courtroom not staffed by Trump appointees auditioning for lifetime Fox contracts.

The punchline: Todd Blanche, architect of the Epstein cover-up and Trump’s “super pardon” slush fund, is up for permanent attorney general, and he’s the one who will decide whether to charge the guy who prosecuted Trump. The same Justice Department that already face-planted trying to criminally nail James Comey and Letitia James now promises to “investigate all evidence of criminal conduct” — which, under Trump, mostly means anyone who once made him look bad on cable news. Rule of law has officially been replaced with Rule of Trump, and the House GOP is racing to prove how fast they can fetch.