The Trump Presidency Timeline

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.

The Republican Congress celebrated Trump’s second term by doing what it does best: shoveling money to the rich, militarizing everything that moves, and rewriting the rules to make sure nobody can stop them next time. Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax bill is now permanent, because nothing says fiscal responsibility like locking in a $4.5 trillion tax cut that disproportionately benefits the highest earners while everyone else gets the patriotic honor of paying for it later.

But wait, there’s more: the bill rockets the Pentagon over the $1 trillion mark and tosses in $170 billion to supercharge ICE raids and mass deportations, turning immigration policy into a federally funded terror campaign. To help pay for this, they took a chainsaw to Medicaid and clean energy funding—because if there’s one thing Republicans hate more than poor people getting health care, it’s the planet not being on fire.

Meanwhile, Congress went on a deregulation bender, using the Congressional Review Act like a legislative wood chipper to shred 22 Biden-era rules on everything from consumer protection to cybersecurity. Then Senate Republicans decided minority rights were cute but inconvenient, nuking rules to ram through Trump nominees in giant en-bloc batches and creatively redefining what 51 votes can do. In other words, they’re not just passing laws—they’re rebuilding the system so the next round of looting and authoritarian cosplay is even easier.

Donald Trump, standing next to Benjamin Netanyahu like it’s an Axis of Impunity reunion tour, used a press conference to call Fed chair Jerome Powell a “fool” and muse about firing him and suing him for “gross incompetence” – because nothing says independent central bank like the president threatening to can the guy who won’t juice the economy hard enough for your re‑election party. He again lied about the cost of the Federal Reserve’s building renovation, nearly doubling the real $2.5bn figure to $4.1bn, then declared it “the highest price in the history of construction,” which is an interesting take from a man whose own businesses have specialized in overbilling, underdelivering, and occasionally not existing.

Trump also forgot to mention the tiny detail that he was the one who first appointed Powell in 2018, instead blaming Biden for reappointing “a fool” – a convenient bout of amnesia from the self-proclaimed hiring genius whose administration was basically a revolving door of future defendants. He then contrasted the Fed project with his own “magnificent, big, beautiful ballroom” replacing the demolished East Wing, bragging that it’s “under budget and ahead of schedule” before immediately admitting the cost has jumped from $200m to $400m. In other words: Powell is incompetent because his numbers are real; Trump is a visionary because his numbers are made up on the fly.

Having now decided the new ballroom will host the inauguration, Trump blamed the doubled price on “all bullet-proof glass” and a “drone-free roof,” as if the Fed’s problem is not inflation but insufficient gold plating. Meanwhile, he keeps dangling the idea that he “might still” fire Powell and is openly salivating over picking the next Fed chair in January – presumably someone willing to run monetary policy off a Truth Social poll. But sure, tell us more about how the real threat to democracy is technocrats quietly trying to keep the economy from turning into a meme stock.

US media in the Trump era is apparently a group project between angry billionaires and a vengeful president, and somehow the only ones not invited are readers and the truth. While Murdochs, Bezos, Soon‑Shiong, and the very Trump‑friendly Ellison clan play Monopoly with newsrooms, they helpfully “guide” coverage so it aligns with their pet projects, personal feuds, and investment portfolios. Because nothing says “independent press” like your boss’s hobbyhorse turning into the editorial line.

On the other side, Trump is running his own quality-control department, where “quality” means “does it flatter me.” He’s using frivolous defamation suits and weaponized regulatory agencies to squeeze outlets that offend his delicate feelings: a giant settlement out of CBS over a banal Kamala Harris edit, a lawsuit against the New York Times for being mean in print, and an FCC chair threatening ABC’s broadcast license over a comedian’s joke. In other words, it’s not censorship if you just bankrupt or de-license everyone who laughs at you.

Under pressure from both their billionaire owners and Trump’s retribution machine, big outlets are dialing everything down to legally vetted mush—soft-pedaled coverage, hedged language, and opinion sections that read like hostage notes to shareholders and the White House. The result: worse journalism at the exact moment the country needs better. But don’t worry, The Guardian would like you to know that they don’t have a billionaire owner, they’re not pulling punches, and they answer to readers instead of oligarchs or the guy threatening broadcast licenses. Also, please click the big donate button to help fund this rare, non-captured corner of the press.