The Trump Presidency Timeline

Congress dropped the 255-page Jack Smith transcript on New Year’s Eve, because nothing says "fresh start" like a meticulous record of how the sitting president allegedly committed crimes and then just canceled the prosecutions by winning the Electoral College again. Smith calmly walks through how his team found proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election and hoarded highly classified documents at his country club — including in a ballroom and a bathroom, because when you think "national security," you obviously think "next to the guest towels."

Smith also notes that Trump "repeatedly tried to obstruct justice" and that there was enough evidence to charge him in both cases. So what happened? Trump got re-elected, took back control of the Justice Department, and his people helpfully made the criminal cases "go away" — not because he was innocent, but because he was in charge. In other words, the rule of law got replaced with the rule of "who’s holding the nuclear codes this week." Smith and his staff were then fired, because nothing screams "totally exonerated" like purging everyone who investigated you.

Now, from the safety of his restored throne, Trump is demanding investigations into the officials who charged him, and Smith openly says he has "no doubt" Trump wants retribution against him and that DOJ now wants payback on anyone who worked the Trump cases. House Republicans, led by Jim Jordan, are doing their part by hauling Smith in for an eight-hour deposition, just to make sure every future prosecutor in America understands the new precedent: if you follow the evidence to the president, enjoy the unemployment line and maybe an investigation. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "law and order."

In year one of his comeback tour, Trump took a Biden-era public health response that was actually reducing overdose deaths and replaced it with a loud, shiny drug war reboot, because nothing says “I care about the opioid crisis” like cutting treatment and sending in the Navy. Biden’s team poured tens of billions into medication-assisted treatment, harm reduction, Medicaid coverage, and housing — and overdose deaths started dropping in 2023 and 2024. Trump looked at that modest success and said, essentially, “what if we tried the 1980s again, but dumber?”

So now fentanyl is officially labeled a “weapon of mass destruction,” cartels are designated terrorist organizations, National Guard troops are patrolling U.S. cities and the border, and the Navy is launching strikes on alleged drug boats — all while the administration temporarily froze $140 million in addiction treatment grants and threw basic public health programs into chaos. In other words, we’re criminalizing illness, militarizing domestic policy, and starving the people actually keeping addicts alive. Trump even claimed “three hundred million people died last year from drugs,” which is impressive, since that’s basically the entire U.S. population. But sure, let’s trust that guy with WMD classifications and troop deployments.

The result: a sweeping pivot from treating fentanyl deaths as a health crisis to treating them as a justification for more cops, more troops, more executive power, and fewer services. It’s the classic Trump formula — less science, more guns — sold as tough-on-crime leadership while quietly dismantling the only strategies that were working. Because why save lives with boring medicine when you can posture on TV with a big executive order and pretend you’re fighting ISIS instead of addiction?

Trump Mobile – the latest entry in the “how many ways can we cash in on the presidency” cinematic universe – has delayed its big, shiny, $499 gold-colored smartphone, the T1. The company, which licensed the Trump name to slap on a phone and service plan, now says there’s a “strong possibility” customers won’t see their devices this month, blaming the government shutdown Trump helped create for disrupting shipments. Because nothing says competent business genius like failing to deliver a product you already took $100 deposits for and then pointing at your own administration’s chaos as the excuse.

The T1 is marketed as a “proudly American” rival to Apple and Samsung, which is adorable given that almost no smartphones are actually manufactured in the US and no one seems to know who would even build this thing. But sure, it’s etched with an American flag, so that’s basically a supply chain. The phone was first promised for August, then vaguely pushed to “later this year,” while customers are still required to cough up $100 just to reserve the privilege of maybe, someday, receiving a gold Trump rectangle.

Trump Mobile also offers a $47.45 monthly phone plan – a price point chosen to worship Trump’s status as the 47th president, because when you’re building a cult of personality, even your billing has to be a campaign ad. The venture is run by Donald Jr and Eric, naturally, and joins Trump-branded watches, shoes, and Bibles in the ever-expanding MAGA QVC catalog. According to financial disclosures, these licensing deals pulled in more than $8m for Trump in 2024 alone, all while his administration oversees the very federal agencies that regulate telecom and digital media. In other words: regulatory power on one hand, phone company cash in the other – but we’re definitely still pretending there’s a meaningful separation between the presidency and the family business.

DC district judge Amy Berman Jackson just had to explain, in writing, that the Trump administration does not get to personally decide which laws and agencies exist, no matter how many Office of Legal Counsel memos they crank out to say otherwise. Russell Vought, currently cosplaying as CFPB acting director while trying to kill the agency, claimed the Federal Reserve was too broke to fund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Jackson politely noted this "crisis" was completely manufactured by the defendants and that funding has been flowing just fine even while the Fed ran at a loss.

This is the second time in a year the court has had to block Team Trump from dismantling the CFPB and mass-firing its workforce, after the National Treasury Employees Union sued to stop the slow-motion execution of the only federal agency whose job is "stop banks from robbing people in broad daylight." Jackson spelled it out: the "only new circumstance" is the administration’s determination to erase a congressionally created watchdog "with the stroke of a pen" while the case is literally before the DC Circuit. In other words, the White House is trying to nullify Congress and the courts because nothing says "constitutional conservative" like pretending separation of powers is optional.

Elizabeth Warren, who helped create the CFPB, pointed out that the agency has returned $21 billion directly to Americans cheated by big banks and giant corporations—so naturally Trump’s people are desperate to shut it down before it can stop any more corporate looting. The judge’s order forces the administration to keep the money flowing so the bureau can, bare minimum, pay its employees and continue existing. The White House, having just been told it can’t unilaterally erase a law it doesn’t like, declined to comment—probably busy workshopping its next "novel workaround" for killing consumer protections without technically admitting it’s siding with the scammers.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — once a monument to American culture — is now the Trump-Kennedy Center, because nothing says "arts" like slapping the name of a twice-impeached coup enthusiast on the building. In response, yet another act, the legendary jazz septet The Cookers, has bailed on their New Year’s Eve gig, politely reminding everyone that jazz was born from "struggle" and "freedom" — you know, all the stuff Trumpism keeps trying to stomp out.

They join drummer Chuck Redd, folk singer Kristy Lee, and Doug Varone and Dancers, all of whom decided they’d rather not help launder the reputation of a man and a board that saxophonist Billy Harper describes as representing "overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture." In other words: the talent noticed the fascist branding and headed for the exits.

Enter Trump-appointed Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell, who responded in the most on-brand way possible: by threatening to sue a jazz musician for $1 million for canceling a gig and calling it a "political stunt" and "classic intolerance." Because nothing screams "the arts are for everyone" like trying to financially crush a drummer for not wanting to play under a giant Trump sign. Grenell also ranted that previous leadership booked "far left political activists" instead of "artists willing to perform for everyone," which is a very elegant way of saying: no one good wants to play our new fascism-flavored arts center.

So now DC’s historic Black cultural scene — in the city that gave us Duke Ellington, Marvin Gaye, and go-go — is watching a once-respected institution get turned into a shrine to one extremely fragile ego. Artists are voting with their feet, the board is doubling down, and the Trump-Kennedy Center is rapidly becoming what it deserves to be: a very expensive, taxpayer-subsidized reminder that authoritarian branding and actual art do not mix.

The Trump administration’s Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem tried to celebrate the new year by shoving a few hundred South Sudanese migrants onto a plane back to an active crisis zone, but a federal judge in Boston rudely interrupted the deportation party. Judge Angel Kelley granted an emergency request to stop DHS from letting Temporary Protected Status for South Sudan expire on 5 January, because apparently you’re not supposed to use federal immigration policy as a live-action Risk board.

DHS had insisted that thanks to “renewed peace” and “safe reintegration,” South Sudan was totally fine now – which is an interesting take on a country the US State Department still tells Americans not to travel to. The lawsuit, filed by four South Sudanese TPS holders and African Communities Together, notes the actual reality: ongoing conflict, humanitarian disaster, and a government that is not magically prepared to absorb deportees just because Kristi Noem wants a Fox News hit about getting “tough” on brown people.

TPS has protected South Sudanese nationals since 2011, giving about 232 people work authorization and a reprieve from being shipped back into chaos, with another 73 applications pending. Noem decided that was a bridge too humane, moving not just to end protections for South Sudan but also for immigrants from Syria, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua – a list that, by pure cosmic coincidence, is overwhelmingly non-white. The lawsuit says the move violates the TPS statute, ignores the on-the-ground humanitarian nightmare, and is driven by racial discrimination in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

In other words, the administration tried to quietly downgrade “temporary protected status” to “temporary until Kristi Noem feels racist enough,” and the courts once again had to step in and explain that immigration policy is not supposed to be a whites-only fantasy league. But sure, tell us again how this is all about the rule of law.