The Trump Presidency Timeline

Donald Trump just took his first joyride on the new Air Force One, also known as the “Qatar Frequent Briber Miles” program. The $400m Boeing 747-8, which Qatar couldn’t unload on the open market, has now been lovingly repurposed as the president’s personal sky-palace, courtesy of a foreign government that has been, in Trump’s words, “very good to us” – which is a fascinating way to describe a country that just gave the US head of state an aircraft the size of a small office park.

Trump bragged that the US “couldn’t build a plane like this” because we “wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary” – a bold statement about a jet that required roughly $1bn in US taxpayer-funded upgrades to make it “appropriate for a president”. Apparently when a foreign monarchy buys the hull, every dollar of conversion costs magically stops counting as corruption and transforms into “very little” spending. The White House insists this is all perfectly legal and not at all the “definition of corruption”, as Democrats keep calling it, while critics point out that the conversion tab might cannibalize funding from the already-delayed Sentinel ICBM modernization program. Nuclear deterrence can wait; the president needs his leather seats.

The air force swears the upgrades focused on operational readiness and that the interior is only “minimally changed”, although Steven Cheung rushed to post glamour shots of the conference tables and plush seating on X like he was listing the thing on Zillow. Trump, naturally, declared it “maybe the greatest commercial plane ever built” and “really quite something”, which is one way to describe a flying monument to the Emoluments Clause being treated as a restaurant suggestion. America used to worry about foreign powers buying influence in Washington; now they can just buy the plane.

Housing is now so expensive that the typical home costs more than five times the typical family’s income, construction is stalling, and Congress somehow managed a bipartisan bill to speed up homebuilding for the first time in 30 years. Trump took one look at that lifeline and decided it was “of minor importance” unless Congress first hands him a shiny new voter-suppression package: limits on mail-in voting and proof-of-citizenship requirements designed to shave off minority and poor voters. So yes, the president is literally ransoming the roof over your head in exchange for making it harder for you to vote him out. Democracy, but make it extortion.

This is just the latest entry in the “Trump lovingly sets his own base on fire” anthology. Gas prices exploded after his impulsive war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, wiping out the tax-refund sugar high from his One Big Beautiful Bill. He’s simultaneously jacking up power costs by kneecapping solar and wind while AI datacenters guzzle electricity like frat boys at a kegger. Health insurance premiums under the ACA are up 58% on average after he pulled subsidies, millions are projected to lose coverage, food assistance and Medicaid are cut, and farmers — his most loyal counties — get hammered by his trade wars, fertilizer spikes, and immigration raids that gut their workforce. Manufacturing jobs? Down. Male employment? Down by 1.5 million. But hey, at least the tariffs made imported stuff more expensive for everyone.

Now he’s threatening to blow up the USMCA trade pact with Canada and Mexico — even though nine of the ten states most dependent on that trade voted for him — which would invite retaliatory tariffs right on his voters’ heads. The pattern is clear: policy is just a weapon to enrich the Trump family, settle grievances, and lock in power, even if it means methodically wrecking the lives of the people wearing the red hats. Housing, health care, jobs, trade — all negotiable. The only non-negotiable item on the agenda is making sure fewer of the people he’s screwing over are allowed to vote about it.

The National Labor Relations Board, allegedly the top labor watchdog, is now functioning more like a corporate shredder for worker complaints. Since Trump’s second term began, the NLRB has jacked up dismissals of unfair labor practice charges to 34.7% for unions and a staggering 67.4% for individual workers. Apparently the new standard is: if you can’t union-bust legally, just refuse to process the paperwork.

This magic trick didn’t happen by accident. Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the board, then left the agency without a quorum for 345 days, because who needs a functioning labor watchdog when you’ve got CEOs to impress? While Congress hacks away at the budget, regional offices are understaffed by nearly a quarter, over 150 staff fled in 2025, and cases are evaporating thanks to glitches and technicalities in a broken docketing system. The backlog grows, the workforce shrinks, and management pops champagne.

To really put a bow on it, Trump’s handpicked general counsel, Crystal Carey – fresh from the union-avoidance factory at Morgan Lewis – has pushed "settlements" over litigation and jammed through new intake rules that demand workers cough up “substantial evidence” in just two weeks or see their cases tossed. Union election filings promptly fell 30% while the administration tries to cancel collective bargaining agreements for over a million federal workers. The NLRB declined to comment, presumably because "we’re dismantling labor protections on purpose" didn’t test well with the communications team.

Donald Trump, statesman that he is, has decided that US foreign policy toward Italy will now be conducted entirely through imaginary selfies. He told an Italian TV journalist that Giorgia Meloni “begged” him for a photo at the G7 in France, then doubled down on Truth Social, claiming she needed the picture to rescue her sinking poll numbers and that her real crime was not cheering loudly enough for his Iran war. El País helpfully pointed out that what really seems to have upset him was a video of Meloni appearing to scold him — lèse-majesté against the Mar-a-Lago Sun King.

Meloni, suddenly discovering the concept of dignity, released a video saying the whole thing was “made up” and noting that the US president treats allies worse than adversaries. She capped it with: “I do not beg, nor does Italy,” which is a strong line from someone who has spent years politely swallowing Trump’s tariffs, his quasi-abandonment of Ukraine and his general hostility to Europe. Her foreign minister Antonio Tajani even briefly canceled a US-Italy business forum trip, before everyone started frantically taping the alliance back together in time for Trump’s big 250th-birthday-for-America party at the US ambassador’s Rome compound.

The rift, of course, is less about geopolitics and more about everyone’s favorite topic: polling. Trump is furious she wouldn’t line up behind his Iran adventure; Meloni is watching her own numbers crater after voters torched her judicial reform in a referendum, the opposition parties are teaming up, and she’s getting outflanked on the hard right by General-turned-shouter Roberto Vannacci. Picking a fight with Trump — who is wildly unpopular in Italy — lets her cosplay as the proud nationalist who won’t be ordered around by Washington, while stealing oxygen from both the center-left and her even-more-feral rivals.

The best part? Europe’s political class, from Italian hard-righters to Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, rushed to express solidarity with Meloni after Trump tried to publicly humiliate her, basically confirming that yes, the American president does treat allies like disobedient interns. Meloni, meanwhile, is busily pushing changes to Italy’s electoral law to scoop up bonus seats and cling to power — because nothing says “defending Western civilisation” like fiddling with the rules while the world’s most powerful man throws tantrums over a photo that never happened.

Colorado Democrats just finished their version of a talent show where the only event was "Who can say lawless Trump administration with the most conviction?" Attorney General Phil Weiser, the supposed underdog, beat longtime Sen. Michael Bennet in the governor’s primary by pitching himself as the guy who actually sues Trump instead of just sadly shaking his head on C-SPAN.

Weiser’s big sell: Congress, including Bennet, has been a decorative plant while Trump runs a "lawless, bullying administration." Bennet tried to clap back by pointing out that Weiser sat out some of the early lawsuits over Trump’s child-separation policy, which is a fun reminder that the moral high ground in this race is basically, "I tried to stop the president from ripping kids from their parents slightly more than the other guy." Weiser counters with his 50+ lawsuits against the administration, while Bennet brings his proud record of voting for only eight of Trump’s Cabinet picks because nothing says resistance like approving part of the authoritarian staffing chart.

Both campaigns carpet-bombed the airwaves with anti-Trump ads, promising to protect Colorado from the same federal government Bennet is still going to be working in until 2029. Weiser heads into the general as the favorite in a state that hasn’t elected a GOP governor in over 20 years, while Bennet returns to Washington to continue bravely not checking the president he just spent months calling dangerous. American checks and balances, now available mostly in campaign commercials.

Kash Patel, the man Trump decided should run the FBI, is reportedly so desperate for likes that he may have blown through federal law and bureau rules to tweet about a sealed terrorism case. Two days after the White House’s historic "UFC 250" cage match, Patel jumped on social media to brag that five men plotting a drone-and-explosives attack had been "stopped cold" — while agents were still hunting for more suspects and the whole thing was under a court seal. Normally, exposing details of a sealed case is the kind of thing that gets you sanctioned, investigated, or fired. Unless, apparently, you’re the director.

Veteran FBI officials say this isn’t a one-off; it’s a pattern. Patel allegedly pesters agents on conference calls for fresh case details not to, say, solve crimes, but to craft his next heroic tweet. Former counterterrorism official Lauren Anderson describes a director more interested in "what my tweet should look like" than in the actual investigation, with behavior brushing up against unprofessional even by post-2016 standards. Other agencies, like the Secret Service, are reportedly thrilled — deputy director Matt Quinn politely reminded everyone not to "choke on your own smoke," which is DC-speak for "tell your influencer boss to stop leaking our cases."

This is also not Patel’s first performance as America’s least reliable crime reporter. He previously blasted out premature victory laps about suspects in the Charlie Kirk murder and a mass shooting at Brown University, only for those people to be released without charge. You’d think repeatedly misidentifying suspects to millions of followers might cause some introspection, but instead we get custom whiskey bottles and more misconduct allegations. The FBI insists nothing was compromised in the UFC plot case and that no subjects were named before unsealing, which is a bold statement when the core problem is that the director treats sealed investigations like his personal content calendar.

Under normal circumstances, an FBI employee leaking a sealed case for self-promotion would be staring down the Office of Professional Responsibility and possibly a contempt citation from a very annoyed judge. Under Trump’s remake of federal law enforcement, the guy allegedly doing it is the one in charge of discipline. America’s top cop is basically a clout-chasing true-crime podcaster with subpoena power, and the only thing truly sealed in this administration is accountability.

Acting attorney general Todd Blanche – formerly known as Trump’s personal lawyer and now apparently the nation’s chief document shredder – is under court order to cough up unredacted Epstein files about "Jane Doe 4", one of the only alleged Epstein victims to directly accuse Trump of assaulting her when she was a young teenager. Instead of complying, the Justice Department is frantically lawyering up and inventing new ways to pretend 2.5 million records are just vibes and "duplicates". The Biden-era FBI already sat on her allegations; the Trump-era DOJ is now treating transparency like it’s classified nuclear launch codes.

Meanwhile, Jane Doe 4 is "off the grid" and terrified of retaliation from the Trump administration, because nothing says "totally baseless accusations" like the alleged victim having to hide while the president’s fixer-turned-AG personally manages which files the public is allowed to see. A judge reminded DOJ that the Epstein Transparency Act doesn’t let them bury evidence just because it’s politically embarrassing, so Blanche’s team helpfully responded by… adding the department’s #3 official, Stanley Woodward, to the case to fight harder against disclosure.

Victims’ names and compromising photos were accidentally exposed in the chaotic 3-million-document dump, but potential co-conspirators and Epstein’s powerful pen pals? Magically retracted. The only people to see the FBI’s handwritten notes on Jane Doe 4’s interviews are a couple of reporters working off an unnamed source, while DOJ still refuses to release them as required by law. So the scoreboard reads: alleged child victim in hiding, Trump nominee in charge of the evidence, and a Justice Department arguing that protecting reputations somehow outranks the statute that explicitly says they can’t do exactly that. American justice is doing great.

Trump has decided that the best person to run the Department of Labor is the guy openly threatening to choke off unemployment insurance administration funds to states he doesn’t like. Keith Sonderling, currently acting labor secretary, is being nominated for the permanent job after sending letters to 53 states and territories warning he’ll yank administrative money if they don’t magically solve "waste, fraud, and abuse" he can’t actually prove exists. Naturally, he went on Fox News to insist that the worst offenders are Democratic states like California, New York, and Illinois, and just skipped the part where evidence is usually involved.

So the man in charge of protecting workers is bragging that he’ll make it harder for unemployed people to access benefits, using the threat of bureaucratic starvation as a partisan cudgel. Trump calls this "delivering strong results for the Hardworking People of our Country"; everyone else might recognize it as weaponizing the safety net against political enemies. Sonderling, for his part, is thrilled to keep "advancing the President’s agenda"—which apparently now includes turning unemployment insurance into a loyalty test.

The nomination follows the resignation of Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who left under investigation for a grab bag of alleged misconduct, including using staff as a personal liquor delivery service and her husband being accused of sexually assaulting staffers. From that ethical dumpster fire, Trump has moved on to a guy who treats basic worker protections like a hostage negotiation. The Department of Labor has officially completed its journey from "pro-worker" to "pro-retribution."

Trump’s long-running "D.C. Safe and Beautiful" mission — also known as Operation: Please Clap for My Martial Law Aesthetic — just hit a snag. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sent a letter telling the head of the Michigan National Guard that her 161 troops in Washington are there only for America 250 celebrations, not to pad Trump’s increasingly creepy federal task force. If they get used for his crime cosplay, she’s yanking them home.

This is happening because Trump deployed hundreds of Guard troops to D.C. back in August 2025 to fight "rampant crime" that was, awkwardly, already going down. Since then, the force has ballooned to more than 4,800 Guard members from D.C. and nearly two dozen states, mostly GOP-run ones that are apparently fine with turning the capital into a semi-permanent occupation zone. The new twist: a handful of Democratic governors agreed to send limited Guard support for the July 4th America 250 circus — and the feds immediately started trying to slip those troops into the broader law-and-order pageant.

Kentucky already had to recall its one Guard member after the federal government quietly diverted them into the task force without the knowledge or consent of Gov. Andy Beshear, who understandably did not sign up for "surprise authoritarian deployment" as part of the job. Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Kentucky have all said their troops are for logistics and crowd support only, and they even filed an amicus brief backing litigation that says Trump’s D.C. Guard deployment is illegal. The administration’s response? A viral video of troops identifying as Michigan Guard patrolling Georgetown — an upscale area nowhere near official America 250 events — because nothing says "public safety" like militarizing the waterfront for the president’s vibes.

So now we have Democratic governors writing formal letters begging the federal government not to repurpose their citizen-soldiers into extras for Trump’s ongoing "law and order" TV reboot. The president is using the National Guard as a semi-permanent, politically controlled police force in the nation’s capital, states are lawyering up to tell him it’s unconstitutional, and the only thing getting safer in D.C. is the size of Trump’s ego projection on the DOJ building.

The Supreme Court says states can keep counting mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, which is normally called "doing elections" but in Trump World is treated like a criminal conspiracy. So naturally, Trump runs to a camera to complain that allowing legally cast ballots to be counted is very unfair to the guy whose entire political project depends on fewer people voting.

Not content with losing in court, he’s also reviving his push for a sweeping federal elections bill — a sort of "Make Voter Suppression Great Again" package — to claw back what the Supreme Court just affirmed. The conservative supermajority he built is now occasionally telling him he can't fire Fed officials on a whim and can’t stop states from counting ballots, so he’s trying the next best thing: rewrite the rules so that the government’s primary function is protecting Donald Trump from voters.

So we’ve got the former president, still obsessed with mail-in ballots years after 2020, railing against basic vote-counting norms while floating a national election takeover. If you were wondering whether the authoritarian impulse was a phase, the answer is: no, it’s a platform.

Joe Biden showed up at a Democratic fundraiser and did what most building inspectors in DC have been too polite to do: he called Donald Trump a "loser" and then cited the ballroom plans as supporting documentation. According to Biden, the sitting president is busy obsessing over a new White House ballroom and his personal reimagining of the Reflecting Pool, because why preserve a historic national monument when you can turn it into the world’s saddest resort amenity?

While normal presidents worry about things like national security and, say, not dismantling democracy in broad daylight, Trump is apparently locked into a Home Shopping Network mindset for federal property. Renovating the Reflecting Pool becomes just another "vanity project"—a phrase that, at this point, might as well be the official name of his administration. Biden’s attack wasn’t just name-calling; it was a reminder that the guy currently holding the nuclear codes is treating Washington like a tacky hotel he’s planning to flip.

So yes, Biden called him a loser. Trump, meanwhile, is reportedly hard at work proving the point by trying to turn the symbolic heart of American democracy into the backdrop for his next campaign gala. Government by HGTV fever dream continues.