The Trump Presidency Timeline

Donald Trump has apparently decided that if you’re going to violate international law, you might as well do it with the rhetorical subtlety of a Monster Energy can. He’s talking about Iran like it’s a Call of Duty DLC: promising to “keep bombing our little hearts out”, describing the US presence as a “lovely ‘stay’ in Iran”, and bragging on Truth Social that as the 47th president it’s a “great honor” to kill “deranged scumbags” — by which he means, an entire nationality. War, but make it influencer content.

Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, now proudly titled “secretary of war” because “defense” didn’t sound murdery enough, is out here live-blogging war crimes. He gushes over “death and destruction from the sky all day long”, openly endorses targeting civilian infrastructure like desalination plants, and announces a policy of giving “no quarter” — i.e., proudly advertising a Geneva Convention violation as if it’s a gym PR. He lovingly calls the US military’s role “lethality”, likens America to a rabid attack dog that shouldn’t be “shackled”, and savors the “quiet death” of an Iranian warship’s crew like he’s reviewing a wine.

All this bloodthirsty honesty, of course, is wrapped around the usual lies. Trump still refuses to call it a war so he doesn’t have to talk about Congress, preferring “excursion” and “stay”, while the White House homepage claims a “doctrine of peace through strength” that has allegedly “ended eight wars” and brought “global stability”. At the same time, the Financial Times reports a broker for Hegseth tried to pile into US military stocks before the shooting started, and Trump helpfully clarifies his favorite part of the whole adventure: “take the oil in Iran.” Bold new doctrine: peace through plunder.

So on the surface, it’s all macho plain-speaking and taboo-busting — the MAGA base gets its fix of unfiltered ultraviolence and linguistic cruelty. Underneath, it’s the same old imperial grift: geopolitical miscalculation and war profiteering, now dressed up as an edgy podcast. Orwell said insincerity is the enemy of clear language; Trump and Hegseth have solved that problem by being both maximally insincere and maximally deranged at the same time. Truly, an epic fury of killing-democracy cosplay.

After nearly 50 days of stiffing more than 35,000 Department of Homeland Security employees, Donald Trump has magnanimously decided they can have their own paychecks back. A new presidential memo orders DHS to start paying people at FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — you know, the folks who deal with disasters, defend the coasts, and keep critical infrastructure from being hacked, all of whom Trump previously treated as interest‑free lenders to his shutdown vanity project.

Trump already carved out TSA last week once passengers started noticing that having unpaid security workers is somewhat bad for air travel. Now, with a record-long DHS shutdown still grinding on, he’s issuing one-off memos like coupons at a clearance sale, while ICE and CBP conveniently stayed funded the whole time thanks to his so‑called One Big Beautiful Bill. So the border cops get steady cash, the rest of DHS gets sporadic presidential mercy, and Congress’s actual power of the purse gets replaced by whatever Trump feels like signing between TV hits. Governing by hostage release note is the new normal.

Presidential historian Barbara Perry stops by NPR to do the increasingly popular academic subfield of our era: explaining that no, this is not normal. Trump’s so-called wartime rhetoric doesn’t sound like FDR rallying a nation under fire or Lincoln agonizing over the cost of war; it sounds like a guy live‑tweeting a grudge match and trying to get a cut of the concessions. Where past presidents talked about shared sacrifice, Trump talks about ratings. Where they tried to calm the country, he tries to crank the volume to eleven and sell merch.

Instead of careful, constrained language that acknowledges Congress, allies, and, you know, reality, Trump’s version of “wartime” is a rolling campaign rally with missiles. Enemies are always cartoon villains, critics are traitors, and the press is the real threat to national security. That shift isn’t just a style note; it’s how you prep a population to accept endless emergency powers, ignore legal limits, and cheer when democratic institutions get run over in the name of “strength.”

The conversation makes clear that earlier presidents at least pretended to respect constitutional guardrails while they tiptoed around them; Trump barely recognizes the concept of guardrails unless they have his name in gold on them. By redefining war as a branding exercise and dissent as disloyalty, he turns the bully pulpit into a foghorn for permanent crisis. The historian is too polite to call it what it is, so allow a translation: this isn’t just rhetoric, it’s the soundtrack to killing democracy.

Under Donald "man of the people" Trump, billionaire fortunes hit all-time highs while the federal minimum wage stayed frozen at $7.25, like a museum exhibit from a time when groceries didn’t cost your firstborn. Oxfam reports that in the year after Trump’s re-election, billionaire wealth grew three times faster than in the previous five years, which is what happens when you pass tax laws written like a love letter to private jets and stock buybacks.

Out in the real world, people like Karen Sanchez are spending their free time at breweries asking strangers if they’d like to mildly inconvenience Elon Musk’s net worth. California’s pushing a one-time 5% wealth tax on its 200+ billionaires to patch the holes blown in hospital and education funding, while states like Massachusetts and Minnesota are already using millionaire taxes to do radical things such as feeding kids and fixing roads. At the federal level, Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna have the audacity to propose that billionaires pay an annual 5% wealth tax, which in Trump’s America ranks somewhere between arson and treason.

Polls show about 70% of Americans think the system is rigged for corporations and the wealthy, possibly because the system is very obviously rigged for corporations and the wealthy. After Trump’s 2017 and 2025 tax cuts shoveled money to the top, CEOs of the five biggest US companies are averaging $52 million a year while the people who actually keep the country functioning are told to be grateful for "opportunity" and maybe some pizza in the break room. So yes, billionaire fortunes are soaring, and so is the movement to finally send them a tax bill that isn’t written in crayon by their lobbyists.

President Trump has a bold new Middle East strategy: he wants U.S. allies to, quote, "go to" the Strait of Hormuz and "just take it." Because when you’re talking about one of the most strategically vital and heavily militarized waterways on Earth, why bother with things like international law, diplomacy, or basic sanity when you can treat it like grabbing the last parking spot at Mar-a-Lago?

The New York Times helpfully brings in national security correspondent Eric Schmitt to explain that, actually, clearing and controlling the Strait of Hormuz by force is not "easy" unless your benchmark for success is "global oil shock and potential regional war." While Trump riffs like a guy yelling at CNN from his recliner, serious people have to game out what happens when a U.S.-led coalition tries to muscle Iran out of a narrow shipping lane bordered by missiles, mines, and small attack boats. Spoiler: it doesn't end with everyone shaking hands and going home for golf.

So we now have the Commander in Chief treating the world’s energy lifeline as a sort of geopolitical Black Friday doorbuster. Allies are supposed to show up, push Iran out of the way, and plant a flag, presumably while Trump takes credit on Truth Social and complains that NATO didn’t Venmo him for the operation. American foreign policy, reimagined as a real estate seizure with cruise missiles.